Kerala - Thrissur   

Making newspaper reading a fun-filled exercise

— PHOTO: K. K. Najeeb

Student-friendly: Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme organised by The Hindu in progress at Paramekkavu Vidhya Mandhir in Thrissur on Monday.

Thrissur: It’s Monday morning. Students of Class VII A at Paramekkavu Vidya Mandir are busy searching for palindromes in the newspaper spread in front of them.

Whenever they spotted one, they got excited.

The Hindu Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme was in progress in the school.

The programme was an attempt to make the newspaper more interactive with the schoolchildren so that it would play a complementary role in improving their academic performances.

“Each time you come across an unfamiliar word, stop and look up a dictionary. And, to improve your vocabulary refer thesaurus regularly,” the resource person Laksmi told the students.

According to the requirements of students, the programme had been broadly divided into four topics, said Kaveri Subramanian, team leader of the NIE programme.

Vocabulary improvement (Standard V), writing skills (Standard VII), project designing (Standard VIII & IX) and enhancing academic performance (X) were the four topics selected for the school.

The programme was launched two years ago with the objective of familiarising students with the newspaper and getting them into the habit of newspaper reading.

An insulated classroom environment was not enough for students’ total development.

The NIE programme had been designed with a view of creating awareness of a wide range of topics, developing critical thinking and strong reading habit, the resource persons pointed out.

Language skill is not the only aspect that has been included in the programme. It helps personality development of the students through a range of methodically created training sessions conducted by professionals.

The programme also infuses confidence in students through activity-oriented classes in reading and writing English and communication and spoken English skills.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Synod from tomorrow
Small industries sector likely to get boost from government
Making newspaper reading a fun-filled exercise
Laptop theft: one held
Blast suspect held

Copyright © 2010, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu